A standing shock wave is seen as a fine line leading outwards from the engine cowling of a 757-200. It was only visible where the background had varying horizontal contrast, and its position moved forward as the speed decreased during our descent. This picture is a shadowgraph.
The shock front is illustrated in the wiki diagram explaining supercritical airfoils, and may help you see the effect shown here.
2 comments:
Nice catch! Any guess on the conditions outside the plan when this occurred?
Nothing particularly unique: airspeed was around 450mph, we were descending, and I think the effect is mostly independent of temperature.
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